Book Review: Karl Kautsky.Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Programm. Eine Antikritik

Written:Written at the end of 1899Published:First published in 1928 inLenin Miscellany VII.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 4,

      pages193-204.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaandD. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

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KarlKautsky.Bernstein tend das sozialdemokratische
	  Programm. Eine

	  Antikritik[1]

...In the introduction Kautsky gives voice to some extremely valuable and
      apt ideas on the conditions that must be satisfied by serious and
      conscientious criticism if those undertaking it do not wish to confine
      themselves with in the narrow bounds of soulless pedantry and
      scholasticism, if they do not wish to lose sight of the close and
      indestructible bonds that exist between the “theoretical
      reason” and the “practical reason”—not the practical
      reason of individuals, but of the masses of the population placed in
      specific conditions. Truth, of course, comes first, says Kautsky, and if
      Bernstein has become sincerely convinced of the error of his former
      views, it is his plain duty to give definite expression to his
      convictions. But the trouble with Bernstein is his lack of precisely
      this directness and definiteness. His pamphlet is amazingly
      “encyclopaedic” (as Antonio Labriola has remarked in a
      French magazine); it touches on a mass of problems, an agglomeration of
      questions, butnot on any oneof them does it provide an
      integral and precise exposition of the critic’s new views. The critic
      merely expresses his doubts and abandons difficult and complicated
      questions without any independent analysis after having scarcely touched
      upon them. This brings about, Kautsky notes sarcastically, a strange
      phenomenon: Bernstein’s followers understand hisbook in the most diverse ways, whereas his opponents all understand it in
      the same way. Bernstein’s chief objection to his opponents is that they do
      not understand him, that they do not want to understand him. The whole
      series of newspaper and magazine articles that Bernstein has written in
      answer to his opponents has failed to explain his positive views.

Kautskybegins his counter-criticism with the question of method. He
      examines Bernstein’s objections to the materialist conception of history
      and shows that Bernstein confuses the concept of “determinism”
      with that of “mechanism,” that he confuses freedom of will with
      freedom of action, and without any grounds identifies historical necessity
      with the hopeless position of people under compulsion. The outworn
      accusation of fatalism, which Bernstein also repeats, is refuted by the
      very premises of Marx’s theory of history. Not everything can be reduced
      to the development of the productive forces, says Bernstein. Other factors
      “must be taken into consideration.”

Verywell, answers Kautsky, that is something every investigator must do,
      irrespective of what conception of history guides him. Anyone who wants to
      make us reject Marx’s method, the method that has so brilliantly justified
      itself and continues to justify itself in practice, must take one of two
      paths: either he must reject altogether the idea of objective laws, of the
      necessity of the historical process, and in so doing abandon all attempts
      at providing a scientific basis for sociology; or he must show how he can
      evolve the necessity of the historical process from other factors (ethical
      views, for example), he must show this by an analysis that will stand
      up to at least a remote comparison with Marx’s analysis inCapital.Not only has Bernstein not made the slightest attempt to
      do this, but, confining him self to empty platitudes about “taking
      into consideration” other factors, hehas continuedto use
      the old materialist method in his book as though he did not declare it to
      be wanting! As Kautsky points out, Bernstein, at times, even applies
      this method with the most impermissible crudity and one sidedness! Further
      on Bernstein’s accusations are levelled against dialectics which, he
      alleges, lead to arbitrary constructions, etc., etc. Bernstein repeats
      these phrases (thathave already managed to disgust also the Russian readers) without making
      the slightest attempt to show what is in correct in dialectics, whether
      Hegel or Marx and Engels are guilty of methodological errors (and
      precisely what errors). The only means by which Bernstein tries to
      motivate and fortify his opinion is a reference to the
      “tendentiousness” of one of the concluding sections ofCapital(on the historical tendency of capitalist
      accumulation). This charge has been worn threadbare: it was made by Eugen
      Dühring and Julius Wolf and many others in Germany, and it was made
      (we add on our part) by Mr. Y. Zhukovsky in the seventies and by
      Mr. N. Mikhailovsky in the nineties—by the very same
      Mr. Mikhailovsky who had once accused Mr. Y. Zhukovsky of acrobatics for
      making the selfsame charge. And whatproofdoes Bernstein offer
      in confirmation of this worn-out nonsense?  Only the following: Marx began
      his “investigation” with ready-made conclusions, since in 1867Capitaldrew the same conclusion that Marx had drawn as early as
      the forties. Such “proof” is tantamount to fraud, answers
      Kautsky, because Marx based his conclusions on two investigations and not
      on one, as he points out very definitely in the introduction toZur
      Kritik(see Russian translation:A Critique 01 Some of the
      Propositions of Political

	Economy[2]).
      Marx made his first
      investigation in the forties, after leaving the Editorial Board of theRheinische

	Zeitung.[3]Marx left the newspaper because he had to treat of material interests and
      he realised that he was not sufficiently prepared for this. From the arena
      of public life, wrote Marx about himself, I withdrew into the study. And
      so (stresses Kautsky, hinting at Bernstein), Marx had doubts regarding the
      correctness of his judgement of material interests, regarding the
      correctness of the dominant views on this subject at that time, but he did
      not think his doubts to be important enough to write a whole book and
      Inform the world about them. On the contrary, Marx set out to study in
      order to advance from doubtings of the old views to positive new ideas. He
      began to study French social theories and English political economy. He
      came into close contact with Engels, who was at that time making a
      detailed study of the actual state of the economy in England. The result
      of this joint work, thisfirstinquiry, was thewell-known conclusions which the two writers expounded very definitely
      towards the end of the

      forties.[4]Marx moved to London in 1850, and the favourable conditions there for
      research determined him “to begin afreshfrom the very
      beginningand to work through the new material critically”
      (A Critique of Some of the Propositions, 1st edition,

p. xi.[5]Our italics). The fruit of thissecondinquiry, lasting many long
      years, were the works:Zur Kritik(1859) andDas Kapital(1867). The conclusion drawn inCapitalcoincides with the former
      conclusion drawn in the forties because the second inquiry confirmed the
      results of the first. “My views, however they may be judged ... are
      the result of conscientious investigation lasting many years,” wrote Marx
      in 1859 (ibid.,

p. xii).[6]Does this, asks Kautsky, resemble conclusions found ready-made long before
      the investigation?

Fromthe question of dialectics Kautsky goes over to the question of
      value. Bernstein says that Marx’s theory is unfinished, that it leaves
      many problems “that are by no means fully explained.” Kautsky does
      not think of refuting this: Marx’s theory is not the last word in science,
      he says. History brings new facts and new methods of investigation that
      require the further development of the theory. if Bernstein had made an
      attempt to utilise new facts and new methods of inquiry for the further
      development of the theory, everybody would have been grateful to him. But
      Bernstein does not dream of doing that; he confines himself to cheap
      attacks on Marx’s disciples and to extremely vague, purely eclectic
      remarks, such as: the Gossen-Jevons-Böhm theory of marginal utility
      is no less just than Marx’s theory of labour-value. Both theories retain
      their significance for different purposes, says Bernstein, because
      Böhm-Bawerk has as much right,a priori, to abstract from
      the property of commodities that they are produced by labour, as Marx has
      to abstract from the property that they are use-values. Kautsky points out
      that it is utterly absurd to regard two opposite, mutually exclusive
      theories suitable for different purposes (and, furthermore, Bernstein does
      not say for what purposes either of the two theories is suit able). It is
      by no means a question as to which property of commodities we are,a
      priori (von Hause aus), entitled to abstract from; the question is
      how to explain the principalphenomena of present-day society, based on theexchangeof
      products, how to explain the value of commodities, the function of money,
      etc. Even if Marx’s theory may leave a number of still unexplained
      problems, Bernstein’s theory of value is a totally unexplained
      problem. Bernstein further quotes Buch, who constructed the concept of the
      maximum density” of labour; but Bernstein does not give a complete
      exposition of Buch’s views or make a definite statement of his own opinion
      on that question. Buch, it seems, gets entangled in contradictions by
      making value depend on wages and wages depend on value. Bernstein senses
      the eclecticism of his statements on value and tries to defend eclecticism
      in general. He calls it “the revolt of the sober intellect against
      the tendency inherent in every dogma to constrict thought within narrow
      confines.” If Bern stein were to recall the history of thought, retorts
      Kautsky, he would see that the great rebels against the constriction of
      thought within narrow confines were never eclectics, that what has always
      characterised them has been the striving for the unity, for the integrity
      of ideas. The eclectic is too timid to dare revolt. If, indeed, I click my
      heels politely to Marx and at the same time click my heels politely to
      Böhm-Bawerk, that is still a long way from revolt! Let anyone name
      even one eclectic in the republic of thought, says Kautsky, who has proved
      worthy of the name of rebel!

Passingfrom the method to the results of its application, Kautsky deals
      with the so-calledZusammenbruchstheorie, the theory of collapse,
      of the sudden crash of West-European capitalism, a crash that Marx
      allegedly believed to be inevitable and connected with a gigantic economic
      crisis. Kautsky says and proves that Marx and Engels never propounded a
      specialZusammenbruchstheorie, that they did not connect aZusammenbruchnecessarily with an economic crisis. This is a
      distortion chargeable to their opponents who expound Marx’s theory
      one-sidedly, tearing out of con text odd passages from different writings
      in order thus triumphantly to refute the “one-sidedness” and
      “crudeness” of the theory. Actually Marx and Engels considered
      the transformation of West-European economic relations to be dependent on
      the maturity and strength of the classesbrought to the fore by modern European history. Bernstein tries to assert
      that this is not the theory of Marx, but Kautsky’s interpretation and
      extension of it. Kautsky, however, with precise quotations from Marx’s
      writings of the forties and sixties, as well as by means of an analysis of
      the basic ideas of Marxism, has completely refuted this truly pettifogging
      trickery of the Bernstein who so blatantly accused Marx’s disciples of
      “apologetics and pettifoggery.” This part of Kautsky’s book Is
      particularly interesting, the more so, since some Russian writers (e.g.,
      Mr. Bulgakov in the magazineNachalo) have been In a hurry to
      repeat the distortion of Marx’s theory which Bernstein offered in the
      guise of “criticism” (as does Mr. Prokopovich in hisWorking-Class Movement in the West, St. Petersburg, 1899).

Kautskyanalyses the basic tendencies of contemporary economic development
      in particularly great detail in order to refute Bernstein’s opinion that
      this development is not proceeding in the direction indicated by Marx. It
      stands to reason that we cannot present here a detailed exposition of the
      chapter “Large- and Small-Scale Production” and of other
      chapters of Kautsky’s book which are devoted to a political-economic
      analysis and contain extensive numerical data, but shall have to confine
      ourselves to a brief mention of their contents. Kautsky emphasises the
      point that the question is one of the direction, by and large, of
      development and by no means of particularities and superficial
      manifestations, whichnotheory can take into account in all
      their great variety. (Marx reminds the reader of this simple but oft for
      gotten truth in the relevant chapters ofCapital.) By a detailed
      analysis of the data provided by the German industrial censuses of 1882
      and 1895 Kautsky shows that they are a brilliant confirmation of Marx’s
      theory and have placed beyond all doubt the process of the concentration
      of capital and the elimination of small-scale production. In 1896
      Bernstein (when he himself still belonged to the guild of apologists and
      pettifoggers. says Kautsky ironically) most emphatically recognised this
      fact, but now he is excessive in his exaggeration of the strength and
      importance of small-scale production. Thus, Bernstein estimates the number
      of enterprises employing fewer than 20 workers at several hundred thou
      sand, “apparently adding in his pessimistic zeal an extranought to the figure,” since there are only 49,000 such enterprises in
      Germany. Further, whom do the statistics not place among the petty
      entrepreneurs—cabmen, messengers, gravediggers, fruit hawkers,
      seamstresses (even though they may work at home for a capitalist), etc.,
      etc.!  Here let us note a remark of Kautsky’s that is particularly
      important from the theoretical standpoint—that petty commercial and
      industrial enterprises (such as those mentioned above) in capitalist
      society are often merely one of the forms of relative over-population;
      ruined petty producers, workers unable to find employment turn (sometimes
      temporarily) into petty traders and hawkers, or rent out rooms or beds
      (also “enterprises,” which are registered by statistics equally with
      all other types of enterprise!), etc. The fact that these employments are
      overcrowded does not by any means indicate the viability of petty
      production but rather the growth of poverty in capitalist
      society. Bernstein, however, emphasises and exaggerates the importance of
      the petty “industrial producers” when to do so seems to him to
      serve his advantage (on the question of large- and small-scale
      production), but keeps silent about them when he finds it to his
      disadvantage (on the question of the growth of poverty).

Bernsteinrepeats the argument, long known to the Russian public as well,
      that joint-stock companies “permit” the fragmentation of
      capital and “make unnecessary” its concentration, and he cites
      some figures (cf.Zhizn, No. 3 for 1899) on the number of small
      shares. Kautsky replies that these figures prove exactly nothing, since
      small shares in any companies might belong to big capitalists (as even
      Bernstein must admit). Bernstein does not adduce any evidence, nor can he,
      to prove that joint-stock companiesincreasethe number of
      property-owners, for the joint-stock companies actually serve to
      expropriate the gullible men of small means for the benefit of big
      capitalists and speculators. The growth in the number of shares merely
      shows that wealth has a tendency to take on the form of shares; but this
      growth tells us nothing about the distribution of wealth. In general,
      Bernstein’s attitude to the question of an increase in the number of
      wealthy people, the number of property-owners, is an astonishingly thought
      less one, which has not prevented his bourgeois followersfrom praising precisely this part of his book and announcing that it is
      based on “a tremendous amount of numerical data.” And Bernstein
      proved himself skilful enough, says Kautsky ironically, to compress this
      tremendous amount of data into two pages! He confuses property-owners with
      capitalists, although no one has denied an increase in the number of the
      latter. In analysing income-tax data, he ignores their fiscal character,
      and their confusion of income from property with income in the form of
      salary, etc. He compares data for different times that have been collected
      by different methods (on Prussia, for example) and are, therefore, not
      comparable. He even goes so far as to borrow data on the growth of
      property-owners in England (printing these figures in heavy type, as his
      trump card) from an article in some sensational newspaper that was singing
      the praises of Queen Victoria’s jubilee and whose handling of statistics
      was thenec plus ultraof light-mindedness! The source of this in
      formation is unknown and, indeed, such information cannot be obtained on
      the basis of data on the English income tax, since these do not permit one
      to determine the number of tax-payers and the total income of each
      tax-payer. Kautsky adduces data from Kolb’s book on the English income tax
      from 1812 to 1847 and shows that they, in exactly the same way as
      Bernstein’s newspaper data, indicate an (apparent) increase in the number
      of property-owners—and that, in a period of the most terrible
      increase in the most horrible poverty of the people in England! A detailed
      analysis of Bernstein’s data led Kautsky to the conclusion that Bernstein
      had not. quoted a single figure that actually proved a growth in the
      number of property-owners.

Bernsteintried to give this phenomenon a theoretical grounding: the
      capitalists, he said, cannot themselves consume the entire surplus-value
      that increases to such a colossal extent; this means that the number of
      property-owners that consume it must grow. It is not very difficult for
      Kautsky to refute this grotesque argument that totally ignores Marx’s
      theory of realisation (expounded many times in Russian literature). It is
      particularly interesting that for his refutation Kautsky does not employ
      theoretical arguments alone, but offers concrete data attesting to the
      growth of luxury and lavish spending in the West-European countries;to the influence of rapidly changing fashions, which greatly intensify
      this process; to mass unemployment; to the tremendous increase in the
      “productive consumption” of surplus-value, i.e., the
      investment of capital in new enterprises, especially the investment of
      European capital in the railways and other enterprises of Russia, Asia,
      and Africa.

Bernsteindeclares that everyone has abandoned Marx’s “theory of
      misery” or “theory of impoverishment.” Kautsky demonstrates
      that this is again a distorted exaggeration on the part of the opponents
      of Marx, since Marx propounded no such theory. He spoke of the growth of
      poverty, degradation, etc., indicating at the same time the counteracting
      tendency and the real social forces that alone could give rise to this
      tendency. Marx’s words on the growth of poverty are fully justified by
      reality: first, we actually see that capitalism has a tendency to engender
      and increase poverty, which acquires tremendous proportions when the
      above-mentioned counteracting tendency is absent. Secondly, poverty grows,
      not in the physical but in the social sense, i.e., in the sense of the
      disparity between the increasing level of consumption by the bourgeoisie
      and consumption by society as a who]e, and the level of the living
      standards of the working people. Bernstein waxes ironical over such a
      conception of “poverty,” saying that this is a Pickwickian
      conception. In reply Kautsky shows that people like Lassalle, Rodbertus,
      and Engels have made very definite statements to the effect that poverty
      must be understood in its social, as well as in its physical, sense. As
      you see—he parries Bernstein’s irony—it is not such a bad
      company that gathers at the “Pickwick Club”! Thirdly and lastly, the
      passage on increasing impoverishment remains perfectly true in respect of
      the “border regions” of capitalism, the border regions being
      understood both in the geographical sense (countries in which capitalism
      is only beginning to penetrate and frequently not only gives rise to
      physical poverty but to the outright starvation of the masses) and in the
      political-economic sense (handicraft industries and, in general, those
      branches of economy in which backward methods of production are still
      retained).

Thechapter on the “new middle estate” is likewise extremelyinteresting and, for us Russians, particularly instructive. If Bernstein
      hadmerelywanted to say that in place of the declining petty
      producers a new middle estate, the intelligentsia, is appearing, he would
      be perfectly correct, says Kautsky, pointing out that he himself noted the
      importance of this phenomenon several years before. In all spheres of
      people’s labour, capitalism increases the number ofoffice and
      professional workerswith particular rapidity and makes a growing
      demand for intellectuals. The latter occupy a special position among the
      other classes, attaching themselves partly to the bourgeoisie by their
      connections, their outlooks, etc., and partly to the wage-workers as
      capitalism increasingly deprives the intellectual of his independent
      position, converts him into a hired worker and threatens to lower his
      living standard. The transitory, unstable, contradictory position of that
      stratum of society now under discussion is reflected in the particularly
      widespread diffusion in its midst of hybrid, eclectic views, a farrago of
      contrasting principles and ideas, an urge to rise verbally to the higher
      spheres and to conceal the conflicts between the historical groups of the
      population with phrases—all of which Marx lashed with his sarcasm
      half a century ago.

Inthe chapter on the theory of crises Kautsky shows that Marx did not at
      all postulate a “theory” of the ten- year cycle of industrial
      crises, but merely stated a fact. The change in this cycle in recent times
      has been noted by Engels himself. It is said that cartels of
      industrialists can counteract crises by limiting and regulating
      production. But America is a land of cartels; yet instead of a limitation
      we see there a tremendous growth of production. Further, the cartels limit
      production for the home market but expand it for the foreign market,
      selling their goods abroad at a loss and extracting monopoly prices from
      consumers in their own country. This system is inevitable under
      protectionism and there are no grounds for anticipating a change from
      protectionism to Free Trade. The cartels close small factories,
      concentrate and monopolise production, introduce improvements, and in this
      way greatly worsen the condition of the producers. Bernstein is of the
      opinion that the speculation which gives rise to crises weakens as the
      conditions on the world market change from unforeseeable to foreseeableand known conditions; but he forgets that it is the
      “unforeseeable” conditions in the new countries that give a
      tremendous impetus to speculation in the old countries. Using statistical
      data, Kautsky shows the growth of speculation in precisely the last few
      years, as well as the growth in the symptoms indicating a crisis in the
      not very distant future.

Withregard to the remaining part of Kautsky’s book, we must mention his
      analysis of the muddle people get into through confusing (as does
      Mr. S. Prokopovich, op. cit.) the economic strength of certain groups with
      their economic organisations. We must mention Kautsky’s statement to the
      effect that Bernstein ascribes to purely temporary conditions of a given
      historical situation the dignity of a general law— his refutation of
      Bernstein’s incorrect views on the essence of democracy; and his
      explanation of Bernstein’s statistical error, in comparing the number of
      industrial workers in Germany with the number of voters and overlooking
      the mere trifle that not all the workers in Germany (but only males over
      the age of 25) enjoy the franchise and that not all participate in the
      elections. We can only strongly recommend to the reader who is interested
      in the question of the significance of Bernstein’s book and in the polemic
      around it to turn to the German literature and under no circumstances to
      believe the biased and one-sided reviews by the proponents of eclecticism
      that dominate in Russian literature. We have heard that part of Kautsky’s
      book here under review will probably be translated into Russian. This is
      very desirable, but is no substitute for an acquaintanceship with the
      original.

[1]Karl Kautsky.Bernstein and the Social-Democratic Programme.
	  A Counter-Critique.—Ed.

[2]Zur Kritik— Marx’sZur Kritik der politisehen
	Ökonomie(A Contribution to the Critique of Political
	Economy). Lenin’s references are to the Russian edition of the book
	published in 1896.

[3]Rheinische Zeitung für Politik, Handel und Gewerb (Rhenish
	Gazette for Politics, Trade, and Manufacture)—a daily
	newspaper that appeared in Cologne from January 1, 1842, to March 31,
	1843. The paper was founded by representatives of Rhineland bourgeois
	who were opposed to Prussian absolutism. Certain Left Hegelians were
	invited to contribute to the paper. Marx became a collaborator in April
	1842 and was one of the paper’s editors from October of that year. TheRheinische Zeitungalso published a series of articles by
	Frederick Engels. Under Marx the paper began to take on a more definite
	revolutionary-democratic character. The course taken by theRheinische Zeitung, and the great popularity it achieved in
	Germany, caused alarm and discontent in government circles and led to
	the vicious persecution of the paper by the reactionary press. On
	January 19, 1843, the Prussian Government issued an order to close down
	theRheinische Zeitungfrom April 1, 1843, and to establish a
	particularly strict, double censorship for the remaining period of its
	existence.

[4]Lenin refers to theManifesto of the Communist Party.

[5]Karl Marx, “Preface toA Contribution to the Critique of
	Political Economy”(Marx and Engels,Selected Works,
	Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 365).

[6]See Note 78.